Technical skills, technology news, analysis ….

Main menu

Post navigation

Turn off Automatic updates in Ubuntu 11.10

One thing Ubuntu lovers like about Ubuntu is that it is “user friendly”, to me, it is “user friendly” only if the user doesn’t know what he is doing.

As an example I have automatic updates, it may be convenient that your operating system search for updates for you (If you do not know how to do it, or do not want to do it by yourself). But it is also annoying to have a pop-up appearing when you are working, just to remember you something you already know. I prefer to turn off automatic update feature.

In my case, I’m using this Netbook mainly on 3G connection, and I want to spent the less possible bandwidth with tasks I can do when on WiFi, one of them is searching for updates.

So I just disabled them. If you want to know how to turn off automatic update in Ubuntu continue reading.

There are two ways, as I’m a console guy, I’ll show you that way first:

Using your favorite editor open the file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic and change:

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";

To:

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "0";

That’s it. Automatic update is now off.

Now, let’s see how to do it from the graphic interface. Open the Ubuntu Software Center then go to Edit -> Software Sources… and be sure to select to Never the option Automatically check for updates:. See screenshot below:

This will disable automatic update on you Ubuntu box.

Copy from http://www.garron.me/linux/turn-off-stop-ubuntu-automatic-update.html